Author
Topic: Lactic Acid (Read 726 times)

Is 2 tsp of lactic acid too much for 5 gallons of sparge water? I'm doing some tests to see how much I need to adjust PH. I'm just concerned because when I taste the water it of course is acidy! Will that transfer into the taste of my beer?

I bought some water testing strips, HTH 6 way test strips to be exact. My PH reading from the tap read about 7.8-8.4. What would be a good "addition" to help get the PH down in my mash? The water is also about 200-300 ppm for total hardness, no chlorine present, 240 ppm total alkalinity and 0 ppm for cyanuric acid.

I don't even know what I just typed - haha, but some advice would be helpful!

You have to know what your water's alkalinity is before you can really ascertain if its too much. Bru'n Water has an acidification calculator that does give you a chance to check out how much acid it will take to bring your water's pH down to a input value. I just used it with your information and it says that 2 tsp in 5 gal is far too much. The resulting pH is on the order of 4.4. I show that you only need about 1.4 tsp in 5 gal to bring the pH to about 5.5 and the alkalinity to 26 ppm as CaCO3.

But given the amount you have stated, there is the possibility that the large amount (2 tsp in 5 gal) could produce a flavor impact in your beer. If I just did my math correctly, that's about 440 ppm and I understand that the taste threshold for lactic acid is around 400 ppm. Fortunately, it doesn't appear that you need to have such a large acid addition.